My brother has recently become a total invalid. One day, last September, he could not get up, and he has been bed ridden ever since. There are multiple reasons why.

1. He is morbidly obese. Close to 300 pounds, and most of the excess is smothering his abdomen. It looks like a HUGE growth.

2. He is 81 years old

3. One of his knee joints in rubbing bone on bone. He is not a candidate for replacement.

4. He is diabetic. His calves and feet are swollen to more then twice their normal size. His skin down there is purplish and he gets sores on them that get infected.

5. He is subborn, and resists all efforts to get him to diet, or even change his diet. He eats a lot of meat, processed food, soda and even sweets, at leat he did when he was living alone.

6. He believes in drugs, and takes MANY Of them.

7. I think he has congestive heart failure

On the plus side, none of his major organs are failing, and he is alert able to take care of his own affairs.


I recently moved to Maryland and have been trying to take care of him. I have acutally gotten him to drink fresh squeezed veggie juice (I make it myself) consisting of spinach, garlic, radish, celery, apple, carrot, parsley, apple and bell pepper. I have also put him on enzymes and a few supplements (Vit D, coenzyme Q 10, and C. He is in a nursing home and I have to sneak these things in. The only positive change I can see is that the color of his legs is better and there are way fewer sores.

The main problems that are keeping him down is he had a blood infection, probably from the sores on his legs, and has not been strong enough to get out of bed on his own ever since. I kid you knot. They acutally use a hoist to move him. He is in diapers because he cannot toilet himself. None of this has caused him to want to loose weight.

The other problem is his knee. He has had shots, including 1 cortesone and 3 synevec (spelling)but they have only enabled him to stand on it, he can't bend it to take a step. If we could get this knee working enough for him to hobble with a walker and get him strong enought to stand up, he might be able to have a degree of independence (not total).

As it is, he is going to need constant nursing care, at a cost of over $7000 a month, and it is going to eat up both of our "retirement" funds very quickly, as of all people, he has no long term insurance.

Any suggestions?

Thank you all so much.